Pages

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

wiggly wiggly world

Have I explained to you about The Wiggles? As a public service, I feel I must.

Cal likes watching The Wiggles. We have a handful of Wiggles DVDs lying around. Or, as Call calls them, "Wiggles DVDVDVDVDVDs." At first, I only tolerated them, because, you know, the things we do for our children. However, the emotions I feel for the Wiggles have evolved over time. I started initially watching them with a mixture of embarrassment and pity. Grown men dancing about singing about the glories of fruit salad? How unseemly. But then, somehow, they started to endear themselves to me with their unselfconscious capering, and now I love them. I love The Wiggles. But not like that. I am still one step away from becoming these ladies. But just one step.

Much like the Beatles, there are four Wiggles. Unlike the Beatles, however, The Wiggles are color-coded so that you can tell them apart. Also as with any good boy band, each Wiggle has his schtick. Jeff (the purple Wiggle) always falls asleep. Anthony (the blue Wiggle) eats a lot. Murray (the red Wiggle) plays the guitar. And Greg (the yellow Wiggle) sings. He sings about dancing with your mates and tying your kangaroo down, sport. Oh, and I should mention that the Wiggles are Australian. Those accents! Most of the songs and humor translate reasonably well for American kid sensibilities, though there occasionally is the need for dubbed over footnotes. For example, the explanation that "barbie" means barbecue, not "Barbie."

The reason this is coming up is because I just bought a couple of new ("fresh") Wiggles DVDVDVDVDs off of half.com to entertain Cal during our trip to Florida in a few weeks. Three brand new DVDs for less than $12. Dude, I am sold. (Though Joe has pointed out that really someone should make a website called quarter.com. Now there's an idea. Also, Seven Minute Abs.) So I was looking through The Wiggles selection, and saw one that looked good, only upon closer inspection this DVDVDVDVD featured Sam, the new yellow Wiggle. (Greg retired from The Wiggles about a year ago due to health reasons.) And I was like, "Ugh, no! Not Sam! Greg 4 evah! Woo!"

If The Wiggles ever appeared on TRL, I would totally be standing outside the studio holding a sign.